Merida, Yucatan — Within the first six months of 2019, the Centro Historico will be under the watch of a city-run Management Office.
That’s the promise from Mayor Renán Barrera Concha, who has promised residents a more tranquil downtown.
The Oficina de Gestión para la Gerencia del Centro Histórico de Mérida is expected to be in the same building that houses the Economic Development and Tourism Department, in La Mejorada park.
Barrera Concha also served as mayor between 2012 and 2015, before nightclub noise became a hot-button issue. When still campaigning, Barrera Concha promised to crack down on the issue.
“When I got to be municipal president in 2012 the problem was that the center had no activity,” he said after the election, but before his inauguration last summer. “Today … with all the investment that the Centro Histórico has had, the problem is totally opposite, that is to say today the problem is the excessive cultural and tourist activity that exists in the Centro, which implies challenges such as the decibels coming from the businesses there.”
Now, Merida residents face yet another foe before attempting to sleep. The GMC processing plant, which takes up an entire block facing Calle 41 between 50 and 52.
GMC has apparently ramped up production and neighbors from blocks around have filed complaints with the city of headaches and hearing problems from the noise, which sounds like a constant jet engine. The noise, possibly emanating from dozens of massive silos, does not abate overnight.
The corporation processes flour and soaps for Yucatan and the rest of Mexico’s southeast.
“With the creation of the office will work in a more coordinated and planned way for the development of cultural projects, tourism, the economy and healthy living,” according to a city statement.
